winter always appears during spring
by Yui Miyamoto
Summary: A voice calls to Subaru and he follows it from old buildings to ancient houses…


**fandom: X  
title: winter always appears during spring  
pairing: seishirou + subaru  
rating: pg  
Description – A voice calls to Subaru and he follows it from old buildings to ancient houses…**

**Disclaimer – Tokyo Babylon doesn't belong to me. Kokoro is Soseki-sensei's.**

**winter always appears during spring  
By miyamoto yui  
**

For a long time now, I've been afraid of unhappiness. Even the thought of something negative entering my mind makes me feel guilty to the point of shame. Although I am not unaccustomed to bouts of loneliness or the other emotions common to all humans, I deny myself the right to self-pity.  
In this respect, I cannot understand if I am weak or if I am strong. And yet, in the end, I imbed the one thing my culture teaches me through and through: Say 'hai' with a smile.

Almost like a fine sword, there are no mistakes with the clean reflection upon its user. Even a mirror cannot be as clear as a brush stroke of a calligrapher.

Among the fallen, three-petaled, pointed flowers that scrape the stone and tar path, I stand in awe of the crushed masses that look like snow. Yes, that boy was correct when he asked me why sakura petals were white as snow if they were splattered with crimson blood. I often wonder why his heart was so violent within that calmness.

It is a blank soul. White. Void of life.  
Coming to terms with my eyes, he suddenly realized this. As for me, being too young to understand the ways of the living and dying world, I simply responded the way I thought best: To feel through instinct.  
It is my greatest gift. It is the root of my curse. It is the source of the balance of the power of my mind and the compassionate weakness of my heart.

"Why am I here?" I wonder aloud, but this is not my spiritual haven. Ueno Park is nowhere near this place. It's on the opposite end of Tokyo, towards the west side. There are many flowers and trees, the light isn't the same. The darkness does not want to embrace it whole-heartedly.

Definitely, these are not the sakura which float over me but never want to touch me.

I am no longer the sixteen-year-old boy I used to know.

Under the light rain, as I hide under an umbrella, I go through the open-air museum in search of the spirit that has called me. Although I respectfully enter the house of the deceased former prime minister, the second floor holds nothing for me. The tour guide says that the tatami I touch used to be part of the student-teacher room, but as I enter another empty room, my eyes begin to water. Why was I given this gift to feel everything but no one can do the same for me?  
Why is there such overwhelming sadness in a clean room? That is the exact moment when the tour guide says that the former prime minister was assassinated. As he walks away, I touch one pillar.

Only the room knows what exactly happened. Although I don't want to say anything or furthermore, see anything. But against my will, the wood tells me that that man knew he was going to die.

I half don't understand and then I completely understand.

Slowly, I let go, giving the impression of almost not wanting to do so.

With no else around me, I stare at the particular spot I just touched. A breeze fills the room with the smell of rain and I nod my head slightly.

I wonder if He expects me to kill him under obvious, yet false pretenses? Such is the way of human nature: Obsession of feeling, touch, and sound. With all this combined, it becomes an emotion and a need.  
A need for what, exactly, is up to the person's discretion.

Yet this is not the place that calls me.

I go from structure to structure. From a sake shop of the Edo period to houses from the Showa, I go in and out, wanting to understand why I am so full of the concept of the past. Why do I like this time where the samurai lived for the sake of their lord?

Is it because I cannot escape from the shame of wanting to focus my energy and time on one person and one thing? Yet why must I feel guilty for something so natural?  
It is because although I am a passionate person, I do not know if I will ever become strong enough to become selfish to claim what I truly desire.

For in extreme emotions, _oni_ appear. And isn't that what I exorcise within each person's heart? These fears which become a tangible reality?

There is no time to lose though. I have an appointment and I just came here because a small voice asked for me. The voice is almost a whisper, afraid to even ask its heart-filled request.

Yet, almost towards the end of my journey, in the second to the last house, I touch the threshold and the echo of sorrowful pride and energy reverberates a bit louder. I bow towards the person keeping the fire inside the indoor stove. The fire burns brighter as she blows onto the mix of wooden chopsticks and cut log pieces.  
My eyes move from side to side as I inspect the samurai's house.

In the bedroom, she stares at me. I stop walking and the voice stops instantly.  
She is wearing a red kimono with autumn leaves. It makes no sense since there is no connection between the two.

Despite everything, a little smile comes to my face for a passing second. She reminds me of Her.

Her hair is frazzled though it tries its best to be long and straight. But her arms are up unevenly, almost as if she were shrugging her shoulders. Or is it like she wants to strangle someone? Her expression is pouty, but her eyes look so mad with irritation.

As I come towards her, I lift up my hand. I immediately stop, not even touching the glass case.

"_Don't touch me."_

_**But you called me.**_

_Fiercely, she protests, "No, I did not."_

_Calmly, I look at her curiously. __**"Would you like to remain this way then?"**_

_"Leave me alone." The doll's energy pushes me away slightly._

_I am at a loss.  
I do not fear her, but I cannot even hug her or else she will want to rip my heart out. I do not want to do anything that will make her more upset than she already is._

_Instead, I close my eyes for a second. __**"I am sorry for bothering you."**_

With that, I leave, but I hear a slight weeping.

As I walk through the muddy path, I look up to the cloudy sky. Almost to the point of crying, the clouds hold back until I am out of the museum.

I keep on walking towards the main road.

The dollmaker was a woman. And she gave this to a young girl during the end of the Edo Period, which was turning into the Meiji Period. She loved this girl who did not understand her sadness at wanting to give her away to someone else.

Even if that someone else was her own younger brother.

"Why do people do that? They want to ask for help but they are too prideful to ask. Even to the one they deem their most precious- why must they hide away their motives for fear of their loved one hating their own honesty?"

At that moment, I just stop. I feel you are near or I imagine you to be. Somewhere where I cannot see. It's the only way that I can continue to 'be'.  
As always, you are making sure you make the plans for our meeting so meticulously. Inside the shadows, I am sure that you are making fun of me with that smirk of yours.

The sakura fall all around me and with all the cries I did not allow myself to give, I bury my face into my gloved hands. Rain and sakura hit my raincoat until it is soaked in water and the scent of the all-too-familiar flowers.

Time goes on and though I feel it every day, I still am confused. Am I really suited for this place and time?  
But there is no one to ask how or why.

The only one who may know the answer is sleeping deep within me. And the only other one is the one who is exactly like me: We think alike, we talk alike, but we appear on the opposite sides of an unpainted, stained-glass mirror.

In this, He who deems himself heartless holds a disappointment and sadness much deeper than the one he embedded within me…  
It is like the Sensei in "Kokoro", in search of one friend, he splattered himself in exposing himself to the one person who may understand his burden. In this selfishness and denial in the want for love, he told the student what he didn't ever want to tell his own wife.  
So, Seishirou-san, I am afraid to ask if the sakura fall because they are white or because they are white, they must fall so quietly?

Still, this snow continues to fall and I will become a transparent statue someday within those petals too. Frozen from the inside, smiling as 'hai' to everyone's words,

for better or for worse.

Without knowing, for only me, why does winter always appear during spring?

_/"Aitai. Ano hito…aitai."_

_This is my first and last plea of selfishness._

_"Do not think such things, my child," my grandmother says to me inside of my head._

_We walk side by side one another in the early morning through Ueno Park. Like ghosts, no one can see us as we walk the sakura lane. Even the people who wait are sleeping._

_As I make my way to the shrine on top of the small hill, the keepers open it especially for me. I pray for someone I do not know, but has called me here. That unbearable loneliness which is so strong to attract me to this park, I pray to meet someone who will truly need me._

_Who will love me the opposite of what I have known?_

_I often wondered that as I quietly waited for sleep to come or on the car rides in the middle of the night. Why do I have to be the heir? Why must I do all these things?  
And if I work hard, will there be someone who will love and respect me as I am and not as I represent myself to be? Everyone gives me what I want because of my position but they do not play with me because I shouldn't want such things._

_But…I am only a child. Don't you see that?_

_Will someone love me for just being born as I am, even if I may be selfish at times? Can I cry in front of them?_

_Even my sister cannot fill this emptiness inside of me though she wants to…_

_But there is someone with a greater sadness than me. That's why I said I would come to Ueno though I did not ever want to leave my sister's side._

_"Oh Subaru~!" When I met that person I wished for, my grandmother wept for me. I didn't cry because I was happy about my curse./_

Even though things turned out the way they painfully did, how could I be selfish enough to say that I was 'unhappy' when I got exactly as I had prayed for?

For the gloves…  
For that star…  
For this person…

All I can do is smile, bow my head, and say 'hai'.

I look up with a confused face and tears on my face. I cover my mouth so that I can be deaf to my own sobs.

"Don't worry, Seishirou-san. I will always be here."

Before my very eyes, two sakura fall to the ground like they did at that time when your voice first entered my head and enveloped my heart.

I don't care if I kill or I am killed by you,  
just as long as we are together. As long as you don't ever go away.

**Owari. / The End.**

**Author's note:** As I stay here in Tokyo, I have learned many things. There are many beautiful and ugly things in this melancholic city. I didn't know what I wanted to say because it would show something more sadness and beauty than I could express.

But I hoped you enjoyed it. I feel that now I understand Tokyo Babylon so much more clearly now.

Thank you, Rei-chan for beta-ing this!

Love,  
Yui

Translation - "Aitai. Ano hito…aitai." - I want to meet…I want to meet to meet that person."

**5/24/2007 8:32:51 AM – LA**  
**5/25/07 12:32 AM - Tokyo**


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